Joseph A. Amato is an American author and scholar. Amato was a history professor and university dean of local and regional history. He has written extensively on European intellectual and cultural history, and the history of Southwestern Minnesota. Since retiring, he has continued publishing history books, as well as three poetry collections and his first novel.
Education
Amato received his B.A. in history from the University of Michigan in 1960; his M.A. in history from the Université Laval, Québec, in 1963; and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Rochester in 1970. He also did post-doctoral study in the history of European cultures with Professor Eugen Weber.
Teaching career
After teaching high school at Royal Oak, Michigan, Amato was an instructor at Binghamton University and the University of California, Riverside. In 1969 Amato began teaching at the new Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota. He was a founder and chair of the History Department, one of the architects of the university’s Rural Studies curriculum in the 1970s, and a principal founder of the Society for Local and Regional History. He established and, in conjunction with the Society for Local and Regional History, supported over seventy publications on demographic, environmental and geographic facets in Southwest Minnesota. Amato retired from SMSU in 2003 as Professor Emeritus of Rural and Regional Studies and of History.
Writing career
Collections of his writings, notebooks, interviews, and reviews of his writing are held at SMSU's regional research and history center and the Literary Manuscript Collections of the Elmer Anderson Library, at the University of Minnesota. In addition to numerous reviews and articles in scholarly and popular journals, Amato's writing falls roughly into four fields: First, local, regional, and rural history. Rethinking Home: The Case for Local History was widely reviewed and featured at several national conferences. On multiple fronts he has continued to study, teach and write about local and regional history and the power of place in determining experience and identity. Second, European cultural and intellectual history. Among his notable books are ', which won the Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction of 2000 and '. Dust has been translated into Italian, German, and other languages. Third, family, self, and community. Among his books in this area: Jacob’s Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History traces seven generations of his family’s migrations from Europe, in Acadia, pre-revolutionary Massachusetts, the rural and industrial Midwest and the American West. Amato describes his youth in two memoirs, Bypass: A Memoir and Golf Beats Us All . Fourth, Amato's recent work includes poetry and his first novel. He has written three volumes of poetry, Buoyancies, A Ballast Master's Log; My Three Sicilies: Stories, Poems, and Histories; and Diagnostics: Poetics of Time. His first novel, Buffalo Man: Life of a Boy Giant on the Minnesota River, was published by Crossings Press in 2018, and Towers of Aging. Amato's books won have won him nominations, selections, and honors, of particular note the Minnesota Humanities Prize for Literature and Prairie Star Award from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council.
Selected works
Mounier and Maritain: A French Catholic Understanding of the Modern World.
Guilt and Gratitude: A History of the Origins of Modern Conscience.
Death Book: Terrors, Consolations, Contradictions and Paradoxes.
Community of Strangers: Change, Turnover, Turbulence & the Transformation of a Midwestern Country Town, with John Radzilowski and assistance of John Meyer.
